Fourth international rallies against Pablo
The Fourth International, the World Party of the Socialist Revolution founded by Leon Trotsky, has recently been affected by an internal crisis. The power and mass influence of Stalinism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Asia and Western Europe overwhelmed a small faction in the leading committee led by Pablo and caused it to veer in the direction of becoming a 'left' wing of Stalinism.
Such a political symptom is extremely dangerous. If it engulfed the International it would mean its certain death as a revolutionary force.
But the Fourth International can not easily be derailed. The genuine O Trotskyists are now meeting Pabloite revisionism in a struggle that has every promise of success.
We are pleased to report that the Fourth International is moving ahead with sure and firm steps to assert the will of the overwhelming majority of the world Trotskyist movement against the usurpation of the Pablo faction.
The French, British, Swiss and New Zealand sections have formed an International Committee of the Fourth International. They have issued a declaration to all sections reaffirming the basic Trotskyist program and calling on the cadres of the world movement to struggle for the life of the Fourth International against ruin at the hands of the Pabloites.
The International Committee charges the Pabloites with the crime of covering up the current betrayals of Stalinism and attempting to foist a dictatorial rule on the International in the interest of the new revisionist doctrine of Pablo.
The International Committee condemns the Pabloites for having dared to speak to the East German workers in the name of Trotsky's Fourth International as nothing but luke-warm 'critics' of the Stalinist counter-revolutionaries, and for having refused to demand the withdrawal of the Kremlin's troops from East Germany although Moscow used these troops to suppress the East German workers.
The International Committee condemns the Pabloites for covering up the betrayal of the Stalinists in the French general strike of last August, and the betrayal of the Stalinists in Iran in the same month.
The organization of the International Committee signifies that the Fourth International has once again proved its historic viability. It shows that no force on earth external or internal, can destroy it.
Reactionary enemies and cynics may try to gain comfort from this struggle within the Fourth International. These people cannot understand that the International is a living revolutionary organism that can mature and measure up to its historic responsibility precisely through such internal struggles. They are part of the hard school of preparation for the greatest step forward humanity has yet taken -- the world socialist revolution.
We hail the formation of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Because we are compelled to remain outside the International organization due to the reactionary Voorhis Law of 1940, we are all the more interested and concerned with the development of the Fourth International. The International Committee insures the line of revolutionary continuity that extends from Lenin, through Trotsky and into the future victory of socialist mankind.
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Last updated 17.8.2003